August 20, 2008
Category: Quackery
Many thanks to science and medical senior writer Cathy Arnst of BusinessWeek for the unexpected coverage online a couple of days ago in their Working Parents blog.
Ms Arnst cited Terra Sig and one of our previous posts in discussing the additional FTC settlement funds to be provided by the makers of Airborne for false claims to consumers:
For background on the charges against the product check out the informative blog terra sigillata, by a pharmacologist, which pulls apart false claims made on behalf of natural remedies (in fact, he pulls apart false medical claims in general--a blog worth bookmarking).
Nothing has really changed since our 4 March 2008 post that Airborne would at that time pay consumers up to a total of $23.3 million in refunds for up to six purchases per customer. Funds for the settlement have now been moved up to $30 million but as the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) stated:
Read on »
Posted by Abel Pharmboy at 8:02 AM • 1 Comments • View blog reactions
August 18, 2008
Category: Academia
I'm sure this question has been addressed in the educational literature to which I do not currently have electronic access.
The question for the day is whether a department that has, say, a 10-year record of awarding tenure to every faculty member who has come up for evaluation is one that has standards that are too low.
One might argue that such an outcome would be the result of outstanding and prescient recruiting of new faculty. Alternatively, superb resources and an enriching collaborative environment might promote such a culture of success.
Another reason might be that underperforming faculty members are counseled early, perhaps at their mid-review, that tenure is unlikely. Those faculty then either choose to go to a non-tenure track teaching position or seek work elsewhere.
So, would a 100% tenure-award rate always mean that a department's evaluation standards were substandard?
Posted by Abel Pharmboy at 7:14 AM • 8 Comments • View blog reactions
August 17, 2008
Category: Blog carnivals
I am officially embarrassed.
It was recently brought to my attention that my previous post misattributed the new Praxis blog to Bora Zivkovic.
Bora did indeed host the first edition of Praxis, the new blog carnival of academic life.
However.
The Praxis experimental carnival of "the experience of living the scientific" was established, founded, and otherwise continues to be led by Martin, author of The Lay Scientist blog.
Mini Bio:
Well I'm Martin, I live in Cambridge, England, and this is me on the Amazon in 2007. I did a frankly weird Ph.D. looking at the relationship between models from ecology, immunology and socioeconomics, and currently I'm a soon-to-be-unemployed post-doc working on ecological and biological modeling.
Bora did indeed suggest the idea in his comment to his own post on blog carnivals.
But it was Martin who on that very same day conceived and compiled the listing, call for a name, called for hosts and posts, and all else associated with establishing a new blog carnival: guidelines, schedule, etc.
And you've got to love a gent who leads off Sunday morning with a post entitled, "What Does Human Flesh Taste Like?" that refers to science itself and not that crackergate fiasco.
That is all. Carry on.
Posted by Abel Pharmboy at 10:20 AM • 1 Comments • View blog reactions
August 16, 2008
Category: Academia
CORRECTION: The following was to be a part-sincere/part-serious sendup of my buddy Bora's penchant for monitoring the entire Internet. Bora did indeed host the first edition of Praxis, the new blog carnival of academic life.
However.
The Praxis experimental carnival of "the experience of living the scientific" was established, founded, and otherwise continues to be led by Martin, author of The Lay Scientist blog.
Mini Bio:
Well I'm Martin, I live in Cambridge, England, and this is me on the Amazon in 2007. I did a frankly weird Ph.D. looking at the relationship between models from ecology, immunology and socioeconomics, and currently I'm a soon-to-be-unemployed post-doc working on ecological and biological modeling.
Bora did indeed suggest the idea in his comment to his own post on blog carnivals. But it was Martin who on that very same day conceived and compiled the listing, call for a name, called for hosts and posts, and all else associated with establishing a new blog carnival: guidelines, schedule, etc.
And you've got to love a gent who leads off Sunday morning with a post entitled, "What Does Human Flesh Taste Like?" that refers to science itself and not that crackergate fiasco.
I've gotta say that I sometimes feel sorry for my bud, Bora Zivkovic. It seems as though Teh Internetz aren't big enough to exhaust his attention so he feels that he must start a new blog carnival. He mused about it a couple of weeks ago, and now here it is:
Bora is hosting the first edition of Praxis, whose mission statement is as follows:
The carnival is intended to cover all aspects of life as an academic, whether it's the lifestyle, career progress, doing a Ph.D., getting funding, climbing the slippery pole, academic life as a minority, working with colleagues and students, dealing with the peer-review process, publishing, grants, science 2.0, amusing anecdotes, conference experiences, philosophical musings, public engagement, or even historical articles about what life was like in the good (or bad) old days.
Praxis is derived from the term by Aristotle as the activity or process of practicing or enacting knowledge.
I used to write a lot more about academic mentoring and such but have really dropped off as of late. Still, the Amazing Zivkovic was generous enough to find and grab two of our recent posts to put in Praxis, one on the NEJM article on medical curriculum revision and the other a brief blurb on the latest act of terrorism against researchers who employ animal subjects.
Read on »
Posted by Abel Pharmboy at 7:08 PM • 2 Comments • View blog reactions
August 15, 2008
Category: Science/medical journalism
The statin class of cholesterol-lowering agents is rich with history and lessons in the power of natural products, the potential of the prepared mind, and just how precarious the path of drug development can be.
American Scientist, the official publication of the scientific research society Sigma Xi, hosts this issue an absolutely lovely article entitled, "Statins: From Fungus to Pharma."
Expertly and engagingly written by University of Pennsylvania biology professor Dr Philip A Rea, the article launches with the story of a then-young Japanese biochemist, Akira Endo. (Evidence of my longstanding admiration for Dr Endo goes back beyond my 10 Jan 2006 post, "All hail, Dr Akira Endo.").
Read on »
Posted by Abel Pharmboy at 7:35 PM • 0 Comments • View blog reactions
August 13, 2008
Category: Cancer
Most people know of methadone as a long-term substitution therapy for people addicted to heroin, morphine, or other similar drugs called opiates or opioids. A good, free full-text description of methadone maintenance therapy (MMT) can be found in the 15 June 2001 issue of American Family Physician.
Now, in the 1 August 2008 issue of Cancer Research, Claudia Friesen and colleagues at the University of Ulm report that methadone can kill leukemia cells in culture and reverse acquired resistance to other drugs like doxorubicin (Adriamycin). Press reports to this effect appeared at the beginning of the month in ScienceDaily and Scientific American online.
However, Karl Schwartz of Patients Against Lymphoma and Lymphomation.org dialed us up for comment on the most complete description of this paper that appeared in ScienceNOW Daily News in an article by Rachel Zelkowitz entitled, "Relief from Rehab?"
Karl wrote primarily because a contributor to one of his patient discussion boards said that methadone would never be developed as a cancer drug because:
Methadone joins a long list of molecules that have shown activity in the lab but will never see the light of day as drugs as either they were not patentable in the first place (naturally occuring molecules) or their patient has expired.
Here was my response to Karl to pass along to his commenter:
Read on »
Posted by Abel Pharmboy at 8:02 AM • 6 Comments • View blog reactions
August 11, 2008
Category: Love for Terra Sig readers
After a long sit on the tarmac at LaGuardia Airport, I'm home from the ScienceBlogs blogger and reader meet-up. Many thanks to all of you readers who came out on Saturday to meet the bloggers at Social Pub, sponsored jointly by Seed Media Group and NYC Skeptics.
The threatened anti-vaccination crowd did not materialize and I had a delightful time chatting with Dr Val Jones of the Voice of Reason blog, Peter Frishauf, founder of Medscape, one of the Medgadget proprietors, a reader named Dawn whose blog I cannot remember right now, and Steve, a pharma/biotech attorney.
Dr Val was totally awesome for make the trip all the way from DC and is as lovely and erudite as you might think from reading her blog. Peter held forth with Zuska and Janet Stemwedel on some fascinating little-known history about Central Park which he has promised to write up for posting here forthwith.
Regrets came from Dr Ivan Oransky, online managing editor for Scientific American, and Scott Hensley, former Wall Street Journal drug industry reporter and current editor and contributor at the WSJ Health Blog. Both had far better things to be doing on a gorgeous Saturday afternoon but we appreciate them checking in with us.
Of course, I also got to meet several other science bloggers who acquaintance I had not previously had the pleasure of making. A brief but very enjoyable 24+ hours - hope to see YOU next year.
Posted by Abel Pharmboy at 10:46 PM • 5 Comments • View blog reactions
August 7, 2008
Category: Humor
So said Seth Grahame-Smith on Tuesday about the Paris Hilton video that responds to John McCain's ad comparing she and Britney Spears to Barack Obama.
I first saw the video when I was going to respond to a very nice comment here by Lisa Emrich, blogger at Brass and Ivory, musician extraordinaire, and founder of the Carnival of MS Bloggers. (btw, Brass and Ivory is widely regarded as one of the premiere sites not only for information on MS but, perhaps even more so, as providing tremendous insight on living with a disability - Lisa is a terrific writer).
So rather than post the video here, go over to Brass and Ivory to see the original McCain ad, the Paris Hilton response, and the backstory on the video.
Read on »
Posted by Abel Pharmboy at 9:02 AM • 6 Comments • View blog reactions
August 6, 2008
Category: Blogging community
It appears that a number of bloggers who write under the ScienceBlogs.com masthead will be converging on New York City this coming weekend. For those of you who know my background, I simply call this "The City."
I mentioned earlier that it was unlikely that I would be there due to family and job commitments (and the fact that my sister and her family were elsewhere that weekend when we could've otherwise had a lovely family gathering).
But with the generous blessings of PharmGirl and PharmKid, I will indeed venture to New Amsterdam for about 32 hours that will include the highly-touted 'meet the readers' session at an Irish pub:
We'll be meeting at 2:00 pm on Saturday, August 9, at:
Social
795 8th Ave (close to 48th St.)
New York, NY 10019
Social's an Irish pub. We've reserved the back room
Read on »
Posted by Abel Pharmboy at 10:45 PM • 1 Comments • View blog reactions
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